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INVESTIGATING ASPECTS OF THE LANGUAGE LEARNER'S CONFIDENCE: AN APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF SIGNAL DETECTION
Author(s) -
Yule George,
Yanz Jerry L.,
Tsuda Atsuko
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
language learning
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.882
H-Index - 103
eISSN - 1467-9922
pISSN - 0023-8333
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-1770.1985.tb01088.x
Subject(s) - correctness , psychology , question answering , point (geometry) , test (biology) , active listening , exemplification , natural language processing , cognitive psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , linguistics , mathematics education , algorithm , communication , mathematics , paleontology , philosophy , geometry , biology
In this study of the performance of a group of adult Japanese ESI learners on a listening test, an attempt is made to discover the relationship between correctness in answering and accuracy in judging the correctness incorrectness of answers chosen. Each time the learners chose an answer, they had to indicate on a 5‐point scale how confident they were of the correctness of the answer. While average ratings for correct answers were higher than for wrong answers, two other patterns of “nonconfident correct answering” and “very confident wrong answering” were found. In order to investigate these phenomena in terms of the individual learner's performance, some analytic procedures from the Theory of Signal Detection were applied. An explanation and exemplification of those procedures are presented. The results show that there can be substantial differences in individual performances, despite identical test scores. These differences in terms of self‐monitoring ability and confidence arc demonstrated and discussed. The study shows that the analytic procedures described can yield a number of important insights into learner performance and that the assumption of a straightforward relationship between accuracy and confidence in answering test items is mistaken.